Right it was a monumental disaster and I'm very sorry for those who lost relatives in the sinking, but this badly designed tub was going too fast and hit an iceberg and sank. Why is there such a huge amount of interest in this sinking ? And why is there so much coverage of this hackneyed tale on its 100 anniversary....
There have been worse disasters at sea..
Last edited by: R.P. on Tue 10 Apr 12 at 16:06
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I am finding it tedious too.
I think the reason for this obsessive interest has something to do with hubris: world's biggest ship, Britain at its apogee of power, designer and company bosses on board along with a mass of celebs and great and good, and the absurd claim that it was 'unsinkable'.
They had another sink coming eh?
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We've been thinking the same here OP. The Titanic was an avoidable accident and if they had more life boats and used them to capacity this would not have been the tragedy it became.
And wasn't the Titanic pretty much identical to the sister ship that sailed a few years earlier. So nothing too special about the ship itself.
And some of the things people take for fact were in the film(s) for dramatic reasons. Not everything was true. And the shipping company never claimed it was unsinkable before it sailed either.
With all the problems/disasters on cruise ships lately, such as the Concordia, I think this is all over the top.
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>> And the shipping company never claimed it was unsinkable before
>> it sailed either.
According to a programme on Radio 2 tonight the Titanic and Olympic brochures stated that the ships were 'designed to be unsinkable', which the expert believed was intended to convey unsinkability.
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>> >> And the shipping company never claimed it was unsinkable before
>> >> it sailed either.
>>
>> According to a programme on Radio 2 tonight the Titanic and Olympic brochures stated that
>> the ships were 'designed to be unsinkable', which the expert believed was intended to convey
>> unsinkability.
Olympic was, it spent most of its long career hitting other ships and sinking them, including slicing through a german WW1 Uboat, a Royal Navy Warship, and an American Lightship!
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Well I think it was a bit to do with the loss of the pride of the British merchant fleet, sinking on its maiden voyage, the large loss of life among what passed for English Society and subsequent locating of the wreckage by Bob Ballard. It was designed to the standards of the day, I imagine, and Elf and Safety had no input re lifeboats and survival equipment
However, I agree with your worse disasters point. Until I checked I had never heard of this one - 9400 lives lost! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff
Last edited by: Meldrew on Tue 10 Apr 12 at 16:22
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The reason is simple.
Distraction technique.
There's an inquiry going on where the law has been systematically broken for over a decade, the police and everyone else knew about it and nothing was done.
It makes Watergate look like a petty break in..
Got to protect the guilty -all journalists of course- and the Judge who does not want the public to know about the size and extent of the coverup. Why, we might start believing the Press tell lies..
So a story about nothing..
(Of course it may not just be the Leveson enquiry being hushed up but something more serious..)
Last edited by: madf on Tue 10 Apr 12 at 16:50
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The Titanic is a cracking story, both the fact and the fiction, so any chance to retell it is taken.
Madf's cover-up conspiracy theory is laughable, although I'm afraid he's serious.
If anything, it's the coverage of Leveson which has been over the top.
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That was one of the ones I was thinking of as well Meldrew - Also RMS Lancastria that sank in June 1940 with a loss of around 5000 lives. That was brushed under the carpet at the time for "morale" reasons but has subsequently received very little coverage.
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The wreck was only found in a blaze of publicity as a cover for the search for, and inspection of, a Russian nuclear submarine which was lost in the area.
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I can't understand why they keep making films and documentaries about the Titanic, the ending is always the same, as is the cause, why bother to watch it!
The guy who is organising the cruise and remembrance for the relatives of those who died, say they are looking for closure.
Closure? < splutter > For gods sake none of them KNEW those who died! What the hell is there to close!
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I saw the end of an interview on BBC yesterday with the Captain? of the cruise ship that is doing the memorial run. He was at pains to smugly point out that an accident on the same scale could not happen today with all the technology they have on board, and anyway, if something happened, they have enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew.
Where has been for the the last 2 months? Had he not heard of Costa Concordia and the fact that half the life boats could not be launched!
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I saw that interview, and when he said it I thought I bet that's exactly what the Captain of the Titanic thought too!!
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And we have the Hillsborough anniversary coming up too where we will all be expected to empathise with people hardly any of us knew who died 23 years ago. The ninety deaths were indeed a tragedy at the time, but equate to around 6 day road deaths and probably matches the number of Liverpool fans who quite literally got away with murder four years earlier in Belgium.
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>> And we have the Hillsborough anniversary coming up too where we will all be expected
>> to empathise with people hardly any of us knew who died 23 years ago.
Alan Davies has been criticised for his comments on Hillsborough.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/10/alan-davies-liverpool-hillsborough-disaster?newsfeed=true
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Going by some of the comments above you could always include Remembrance day for the same reasons! - The "Great Wars" finished over 60yrs ago, time to "let go"!
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>>The ninety deaths were indeed a tragedy at the time, but... probably matches the number of Liverpool fans who quite literally got away with murder four years earlier in Belgium.
I say RR, that's a bit off.
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>>
>> I say RR, that's a bit off.
>>
Well, 39 Italian fans didn't commit suicide, did they?
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>> Well, 39 Italian fans didn't commit suicide, did they?
And your point is?
If you don't know what's wrong with your original comment, there isn't much point in me trying to explain. At least somebody apparently found your post helpful. I won't dignify it with a red face!
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It is of course anti Liverpudlian to suggest even one fan has ever done anything wrong..ever.
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I've never seen much difference between Heysel and Hillsborough.
Liverpool fans were the indirect cause of many deaths in both cases.
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>> I've never seen much difference between Heysel and Hillsborough.
>>
>> Liverpool fans were the indirect cause of many deaths in both cases.
There is a vast difference.
The Liverpool fans were direct cause of many deaths in Heysel.
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Zero has made the first comment on the subject I agree with.
At Heysel, there were also contributory factors which were pointed out as risks beforehand, but the direct cause was indeed a group of Liverpool fans.
Sheffield was about crowd behaviour and management, combined with the open terrace environment, and is the principal reason that grounds are now much safer.
The implication that it was some sort of payback for Heysel is what I objected to. I know that wasn't said, but otherwise why mention it?
Last edited by: Manatee on Tue 10 Apr 12 at 18:55
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>> The implication that it was some sort of payback for Heysel is what I objected
>> to. I know that wasn't said, but otherwise why mention it?
>>
Because we are expected to display uncritical reverence to the memory of Hillsborough while they largely ignore the Hysel anniversary - incidently, trying to shift the blame to the Belgian police at the time of the incident and there were plenty of claims that their fans who went on trial in Belgium were being victimised.
And not making the sound of a crashing plane when they play Manchester United might get them a little more sympathy too.
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A very strange fact about the Titanic.
There was a book written about a ship, called the Titan, which was unsinkable.
It hit ice in the Atlantic and sunk, with the loss of most on board.
The book, with is a work of fiction, was written in 1898.
www.amazon.com/Wreck-Titan-Futility-Morgan-Robertson/dp/0899668216
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It's almost as if something is saying that the cruise to where the Titanic went down shouldn't go.
First it was delayed due to high winds. It is now returning to Ireland because of a medical emergency.
So then to make up time it will speed into something....?
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So if someone has now been taken off because of illness... there's one less than was on the titanic.... And if the number of passengers was significant for some for 'closure' then they might not get it.
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I heard two interesting anecdotes about the Titanic.
One was of a young woman who survived the Titanic sinking, and again survived the sinking of her sister ship the Britannic a few years later when the liner was torpedoed in the war, serving as a nurse on the hospital ship.
Two was an old man being interviewed and asked the usual question, to what did he attribute his longevity? He said it was mainly because he had cancelled his reservation on the Titanic shortly before she sailed.
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I posted a similar posting on FB - one of my friends on there responded that his Grandfather should have sailed on the Lancastria the day she was sunk....fate is a very odd thing
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The day you check in on earth, your check out date is also recorded. Nothing will change that, you just live with it.
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We're all gonna die. The only question is how you check out. Do you want go on your feet, or on your [expletive deleted] knees?
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>> your check out date is also recorded. Nothing
>> will change that,
>>
That reminds me of that scene in Lawrence of Arabia, when Lawrence intervenes in a tribal blood feud and decides to execute the man himself. He then discovers the perpetrator was the boy he had previously saved from death in the desert.
"Perhaps it was written, after all?"
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>> The day you check in on earth, your check out date is also recorded
A dubious claim. 'All is written....' Me don't tink so.
We know we will die one day. We don't and can't know when, unless we decide to set the moment ourselves.
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A good friend once told me that you have a set number of heartbeats programmed into your Genes, once you`ve used them, Kaput! whatever your age! - thats why so many "apparently" fit people out jogging suddenly drop dead. Therefore I dont do any exercise or stuff that raises my heart-rate unnecessarily !.
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>> told me that you have a set number of heartbeats programmed into your Genes
Another very dubious contention.
Although some things can be predicted, up to a point, on the basis of their probability or otherwise, the future is always unpredictable in every detail until it has occurred and become the past. Then, rather annoyingly, it turns out to have been inevitable, with the benefit of hindsight. What 'might have happened' is mere faff and of no interest, since it didn't happen.
Heh heh...
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Thu 12 Apr 12 at 16:01
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Can anyone explain why time passes faster the older you get?
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...one of my friends on there responded that his Grandfather should have sailed on the Lancastria the day she was sunk....fate is a very odd thing.
It would be odder still if you had a contact whose grandfather did die on the Lancastria, RP. It's just an extreme case of history being written by the winning side.
But you don't win today's Golden Scrotum award; that goes to Zero for his 'check out time' idea.
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"... a young woman who survived the Titanic sinking, and again survived the sinking of her sister ship the Britannic a few years later when the liner was torpedoed in the war, serving as a nurse on the hospital ship"
Reminded me of this story - www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/06/hiroshima-nagasaki-survivor-dies
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100 years from now will the relatives of those killed in the collapse of the twin towers "remember" by following the flight path of those planes?
Doubt it somehow.
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Well as the towers are not there any more it wouldn't be impossible. And it is the Yanks.
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well there is a flip side to this.
I have been reading on another forum that some people (namely in America) have only just realised that the RMS Titanic was actually real and the ship did actually sink.
A new definition of dumbed down and thick comes to mind.
No doubt the Americans are going to ram 9/11 down our throats until we spew on that disaster.
Last edited by: diddy1234 on Wed 11 Apr 12 at 09:15
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>> A very strange fact about the Titanic.
>> There was a book written about a ship, called the Titan, which was unsinkable.
>> It hit ice in the Atlantic and sunk, with the loss of most on board.
>> The book, with is a work of fiction, was written in 1898.
And similarly Nevil Shute's 'No Highway' tells the story of the Rutland Reindeer airliner, pride of the British merchant air arm, crashing and later being grounded due to metal fatigue.
Published in 1950 some four years before the Comet delivered the same event in reality.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 11 Apr 12 at 10:05
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I think the worst of it is that they have resurrected that truly dreadful film with the appalling dirge sung by a woman whose name I have successfully tried to forget.
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Some bloke came on the radio and said that Titanic, the film was a lot of rubbish because it was over an hour before they mentioned the iceberg. The presenter pointed out that had they known about the iceberg earlier, they wouldn't have hit it, and there would have been no film. He still insisted it was rubbish.
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watch it in reverse, the film is about the sea giving birth to people and a ship !
Last edited by: diddy1234 on Wed 11 Apr 12 at 11:19
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>> with the appalling dirge sung by a woman whose name I have successfully tried to
>> forget.
You mean this one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNIPqafd4As&ob=av3e ?
Oh, sorry... :)
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Went to see that in a West End fleapit. The ticket woman didn't bat an eyelid when I asked for "two tickets for the Titanic please"....
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Titanic is a business now. Some people are making money from the public sentiment.
I personally don't think it was something to be celebrated. Lots of people died and ship's design was faulty too.
The Costa Concordia incident was also somewhat responsible to fuel the Titanic debate again.
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>> Titanic is a business now. Some people are making money from the public sentiment.
But isn't that the case with most wars and the people who have profited from related films/books etc.?
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I think it is more a commemoration than a celebration - along the lines of Remembrance Sunday, service at the Centopah and that sort of thing.
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A titanic case of overkill.... - Armel Coussine
